abstract

To support the advanced ceramics infrastructure in terms of ability to acquire reliable property and performance data, and to define tests for specifications, the development of testing standards has had priority in Europe through CEN (Comité Européen de Normalisation) over the past six years. The maintenance of close links with other standardisation bodies, including ASTM, JIS, and now ISO, has been important, and has been achieved through the international ceramics community. This has minimized technical differences between standards produced in different parts of the world. A review of progress in the preparation of formal CEN standards for monolithic ceramics is presented, which comprises a programme with a target of about eighty standards to be available by 1998. Some of the outstanding problems and requirements are identified. The role of pre-standardization research programmes and interlaboratory comparison is emphasized, including national and international programmes within the European Union. In particular, collaborative work under the auspices of VAMAS has proved to be a valuable method of obtaining internationally agreed positions on some of the technical issues.

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